How to Setup Gmail in Windows 10

If you’re on Windows 10, you might be pleased to know that there is now a simple and elegant way to view your email, contacts, and Google calendar using the built-in store apps instead of Outlook.

Outlook is a great email client for corporate employees, but I’m not a huge fan of its personal email. However, prior to Windows 10, I had no choice but to use Outlook or permanently save one tab in Chrome for my email.

The new Mail, Calendar, and People apps can be synced with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts, respectively. However, the best thing for me is that the apps look very nice and I really enjoy using them. In this article, I will show you how to quickly and easily sync your Google account with Windows 10.

Set up Gmail in the Windows 10 Mail app

First, let’s set up the Mail app. The great thing about the three apps in Windows 10 is that they are all integrated. Once you add your Google account to one app, it will automatically be added to the other two apps as well. Plus, each app has links to other apps in the sidebar, so it’s easy to switch between apps.

To open the Mail app, simply click Start and type Mail. The best result should be Mail – Trusted Microsoft Store app.

The Mail app is divided into three sections: on the left is a sidebar where you will see a list of email accounts and folders, in the middle is a brief description of all emails in that folder, and in the right pane is a complete individual email address.

Click on “Accounts” in the left sidebar and then click on “Add Account” in the right pane. A pop-up dialog will appear where you can select your email provider.

You can add an Outlook.com account, Exchange account, Yahoo email, iCloud email, or any other POP or IMAP enabled email account. In our case, we’ll choose Google. Go ahead, enter your Google credentials and click Allow to allow Windows to access your email, calendars, and contacts.

If everything went well, you should receive a message that the account was successfully added to Windows.

All email from your Gmail inbox should now show up in the Mail app. You will notice that by default the Mail app only displays your Inbox and that’s it.

So what if you have a whole bunch of Gmail shortcuts? Well, click on the More link and it will download all of the other Gmail shortcuts, which are basically folders in the Mail app. However, the panel disappears as soon as you click it, so if you need constant access to multiple shortcuts, it’s a good idea to right-click and select Add to Favorites. These shortcuts will now appear in your Inbox and can be accessed at any time.

By default, the Mail app only downloads email for the last 3 months. If you want to change this, you need to go to the settings. If the left sidebar is not already expanded, you can expand it by clicking the three horizontal lines in the upper left corner. Then click on the gear icon in the lower right corner of the sidebar.

A slide-out panel appears on the right where you can customize various settings for the Mail application. At the top, you want to click on “Account Management”.

Then click on the email account for which you want to configure settings. In our case, this is for a Gmail account.

Click an account and a dialog box appears where you can change the name of the email account, delete it, or change the mailbox sync settings.

Clicking on this option will load the Gmail sync settings dialog. Here you can choose when to download a new email and whether to download the entire message and images from the Internet.

Below you can change how often you sync your contacts and calendars, and the time from which you want to download email. The only other option in the last 3 months is Anytime, which will download all emails regardless of date.

Finally, you can turn off email, calendar, or contacts individually if you like. It’s worth noting that you can adjust these settings in the same way in the Calendar and Contacts applications.

Google Sync with Calendar and People apps

Now that your Mail app is set up on Windows 10, all you need to do is open the Calendar and People apps to see your Google calendars and Google contacts.

By default, all calendars should be checked, but you expand Gmail and manually select or deselect the calendars you want to view. Now open the People app and you’ll see that it looks a lot like the other two apps. Microsoft did a good job of making them all look the same.

That’s all it takes to sync our email, contacts, and Google calendar to Windows 10. It has been a pleasure so far, and we hope Microsoft continues to update apps to make them better. Enjoy!

–